loo 

PROHIBITION 

AND  THE 


PRESIDENTIAL 

CAMPAIGN 


BISHOP  JAMES  CANNON,  JR.,  D.D. 


(ADDRESS  DELIVERED  AT  THE  VIRGINIA  CONFERENCE 
OF  THE  METHODIST  EPISCOPAL  CHURCH,  SOUTH 
DANVILLE,  VIRGINIA) 


THE  AMERICAN  ISSUE  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 
WESTERVILLE,  OHIO,  U.S.A 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2017  with  funding  from 
Columbia  University  Libraries 


https://archive.org/details/prohibitiontheOOcann 


PROHIBITION 

AND  THE 

PRESIDENTIAL  CAMPAIGN 

By  BISHOP  JAMES  CANNON,  Jr.,  D.  D. 

Danville,  Va.,  Nov.  12.  — Bishop  James 
Cannon,  Jr.,  chairman  of  the  Board  of  Tem- 
perance and  social  service  of  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church,  South,  with  headquarters 
at  Washington,  made  the  following  statement 
at  today’s  session  of  the  Virginia  Conference 
in  Danville,  Va.,  concerning  the  present  con- 
dition relating  to  prohibition  and  the  attitude 
of  the  Board  of  Temperance; 

“For  nearly  half  a century  this  great  Con- 
ference has  been  in  the  forefront  of  the  battle 
against  the  liquor  traffic.  Forty-five  years 
ago  Drs.  W.  W.  Bennett  and  W.  W.  Smith, 
backed  by  this  body,  led  the  temperance 
forces  of  Virginia  to  secure  the  passage  of 
the  local  option  law,  and  as  a student  of  Ran- 
dolph-Macon  College,  it  was  my  good  fortune 
to  be  enlisted  in  the  war  and  to  give  my 
service  to  help  in  the  circulation  of  the  South- 
ern Crusader,  and  from  that  day  to  this  pres- 
ent hour  I have  fought  the  common  enemy 
of  mankind  with  such  ability  and  strength 
as  God  has  given  me  wherever  opportunity 
or  duty  has  called.  There  have  been  many 
times  when  this  body  has  taken  important  ac- 
tion on  this  question:  When  first  the  Mann 
Law,  the  Byrd  Law,  the  Prohibition  Enabling 
Act,  and  the  Mapp  Law  were  being  consid- 
ered by  the  people  of  Virginia  no  action  was 
more  influential  than  that  of  this  great  Con- 
ference in  securing  the  adoption  of  these  sal- 
utary measures,  which  drove  out  cross  roads 
[3] 


and  village  barrooms,  the  city  saloons,  the 
brewers  and  distillers  and  wholesale  liquor 
dealers,  and  branded  future  traffickers  in  in- 
toxicating liquors  as  criminals  and  outlaws, 
and  also  destroyed  the  strangle-hold  of  the 
liquor  traffic  upon  town  and  city  councils, 
State  Legislature  and  other  government  of- 
ficials. It  is  difficult  for  our  children,  indeed 
it  is  difficult  for  the  young  members  of  this 
Conference,  to  realize  the  strength,  the  re- 
sourcefulness and  the  desperation  of  the  op- 
position or  the  intensity  of  the  struggle  par- 
ticipated in  by  the  older  members  of  this 
body,  which  included  the  murder  of  Moffatt 
in  this  very  city,  the  physical  assault  on  Dr. 
Crawford,  in  Amherst  county,  the  abuse  and 
vilification  of  prohibition  leaders,  regardless 
of  their  standing  or  character.  A reading  of 
the  reports  of  the  conference  committee  on 
temperance  and  the  resolutions  adopted  by 
the  body  itself  will  indicate  the  stage  of  prog- 
ress of  temperance  reform  in  Virginia  from 
year  to  year. 

RECALLS  LIQUOR  THREATS 

“When  the  state-wide  prohibition  law,  com- 
monly called  the  Mapp  Law,  was  under  con- 
sideration in  the  General  Assembly  in  Vir- 
ginia in  1916,  there  were  not  only  prophecies 
but  positive  threats  by  the  outlawed  dealers 
that  they  would  not  respect  the  expressed 
will  of  the  people  of  Virginia,  but  would  set- 
tle in  Baltimore  and  Washington  and  from 
these  points  outside  the  state  would  carry  on 
their  destructive  traffic  in  defiance  of  the  Vir- 
ginia law,  and  Baltimore  papers  gloated  over 
the  great  increase  in  the  manufacture  of  in- 
toxicants by  the  criminal  violators  of  the  law 
of  her  sister  state. 

“And  then  the  day  came  when  the  people 
of  the  dry  states  determined  that  they  would 
[4] 


not  permit  their  laws  to  be  flouted  by  ‘wet’  for- 
eign dominated  centers  like  New  York,  Phil- 
adelphia, Chicago,  Louisville,  Baltimore,  New 
Orleans,  St.  Louis,  etc.  They  said  to  these 
‘wet’  people,  ‘If  you  will  not  respect  the  rights 
of  the  people  of  the  state  to  prohibit  the  traf- 
fic in  intoxicants  within  its  own  borders,  we 
Avill  pass  a constitutional  amendment  which 
will  so  prohibit  the  legalized  brewers,  dis- 
tilleries and  wholesale  and  retail  liquor  traffic 
within  your  own  borders  and  thus  prevent 
their  operation  to  nullify  the  wishes  of  the 
‘dry’  states.’  That  was  the  genesis  and  the 
driving  power  of  the  movement  for  national 
prohibition. 

DISCUSSES  “PRESENT  CLAMOR” 

“The  present  clamor  by  Bruce,  Butler, 
Ritchie,  Reed  and  Smith  and  their  followers 
and  the  ‘wet’  newspapers  for  the  state  control 
of  the  liquor  traffic  is  a belated  howl  from 
those  who  had  neither  the  desire  nor  the  pro- 
phetic vision  to  use  their  voices  and  influence 
to  advocate  the  doctrine  of  state  sovereignty 
for  the  protection  of  those  states  which  had 
outlawed  the  traffic  in  intoxicants.  All  the 
efforts  of  the  ‘dry’  states  to  protect  their  chil- 
dren from  outside  traffickers  by  the  passage 
of  state  enforcement  laws  and  of  Federal  in- 
terstate shipment  and  postal  laws  were  fought 
bitterly  by  the  very  element  which  is  now 
clamoring  for  state  sovereignty  and  control. 
Never  was  there  any  proposal  by  the  liquor 
traffic  or  its  defendants  to  effect  the  state 
prohibition  laws.  These  people  were  lawless 
and  defiant  up  to  the  day  of  the  ratification 
of  the  Eighteenth  Amendment,  and  since  the 
amendment  was  ratified  the  great  aim  has 
been  to  discover  how  to  evade  the  provisions 
of  the  law  by  fraud  or  force.  The  cry  from 

[5] 


the  beginning  has  been  that  the  law  cannot 
be  enforced,  with  the  criminal  undertone  that 
the  law  shall  not  be  enforced.  Today  the 
battle  cry  of  the  enemy,  loud  and  clear,  is 
state  nullification  of  the  National  Prohibition 
Law. 

QUESTIONS  OF  PERSONAL  RECORDS 

“This  great  Conference  faces  today  a situ- 
ation which  demands  that  it  take  action  as 
clear  and  unmistakable  as  it  has  always  taken 
at  every  stage  of  this  great  conflict,  for  be- 
fore its  next  meeting  that  will  have  occurred 
which  will  greatly  affect  for  good  or  ill  the 
future  effectiveness  of  the  National  Prohibi- 
tion Law.  To  be  specific,  the  future  effective- 
ness of  that  law,  whether  we  like  it  or  not, 
will  be  tremendously  affected  by  the  results 
of  the  approaching  presidential  campaign. 
The  strenuous  efforts  which  are  being  made 
quite  honestly  in  some  cases  by  some  ‘dry’ 
leaders  to  eliminate  the  prohibition  question 
from  the  campaign  have  been  and  will  be  un- 
availing, because  the  ‘wets’  have  determined 
to  force  the  fighting  for  the  nomination  and 
the  election  of  an  openly  declared  opponent 
of  prohibition,  and  these  ‘wet’  men  will  be 
satisfied  with  nothing  less.  With  the  line  of 
battle  thus  clearly  drawn  by  the  enemy  itself, 
if  a ‘wet’  man  should  be  nominated  by  either 
party  the  issue  will  not  be  Republicanism  or 
Democracy,  but  prohibition  law  enforcement 
vs.  lawlessness  and  nullification.  The  issue 
will  not  be  settled  by  party  platforms.  No 
party  convention  will  dare  to  adopt  a plat- 
form either  of  prohibition  repeal  or  non-en- 
forcement lawlessness  at  this  stage  of  the 
conflict.  The  issue  will,  and  must  be,  under 
the  existing  circumstances,  made  by  the  per- 
sonal records  and  attitude  of  the  candidates, 
toward  prohibition  and  the  prohibition  law. 

[6] 


“To  be  still  more  specific,  the  outstanding 
opponents  of  the  prohibition  law  in  the  field 
of  national  politics  are  Governors  Alfred  E. 
Smith,  Albert  C.  Ritchie,  Senator  James  A. 
Reed  and  Dr.  Nicholas  M.  Butler.  All  of 
these  men  are  personally  and  politically  op- 
posed to  prohibition,  and  have  done  what 
they  could  to  break  down  public  sentiment  in 
support  of  the  law  and  to  weaken  its  effec- 
tiveness. 

“PUGNACIOUSLY  VINDICTIVE” 

“Dr.  Butler  has  been  so  pugnaciously  vin- 
dictive and  so  disregardful  of  all  personal  and 
social  amenities  in  his  attacks  upon  the  intel- 
ligence, motives  and  character  of  the  support- 
ers of  prohibition  that  it  has  been  difficult  at 
times  to  escape  the  conviction  that  there  are 
personal  reasons  for  the  furious  epithets 
which  he  has  hurled  at  the  prohibition  law 
and  its  supporters.  While  it  may  be  un- 
founded, there  is  suspicion  that  he  is  chasing 
the  forlorn  hope  that  his  attitude  may  finally 
secure  the  support  of  ‘wet’  elements  for  the 
presidency,  which  has  made  him  the  out- 
standing ‘wet’  leader  in  the  Republican  party. 
While  his  outbursts  have  been  received  with 
restrained  comments  by  his  political  associ- 
ates in  this  country  he  has  been  accepted  as 
an  oracle  in  many  influential  circles  in  Europe 
and  his  personal  extravagancies  have  been 
accepted  as  more  weighty  than  all  the  facts 
as  to  the  social,  economic  and  moral  benefits 
of  prohibition.  It  is  hardly  likely  that  the 
Republican  party  will  commit  presidential 
suicide  by  the  nomination  of  a man  holding 
such  views  and  with  such  a record,  but  should 
it  do  so  his  election  should  be  opposed  by  all 
supporters  of  the  prohibition  law,  regardless 
of  party  ties. 


[7] 


REFERS  TO  SENATOR  REED 

“Senator  James  A.  Reed  has  shown  him- 
self to  be  one  of  the  most  bitter  and  vindic- 
tive enemies  of  prohibition.  He  has  fought 
prohibition  legislation  actively  and  shrewdly 
not  to  say  ably.  He  exhibited  his  open  hos- 
tility not  only  to  the  prohibition  law,  but  his 
contempt  for  prohibition  workers  by  his  con- 
duct as  chairman  at  the  hearing  before  the 
Senate  Committee  in  1926  on  the  prohibition 
bills.  Again  in  1927,  in  the  hearing  on  the 
investigation  of  the  Pennsylvania  primary, 
he  manifested  the  same  hostile  attitude.  He 
treated  the  group  of  women  witnesses  at  the 
beginning  of  the  hearing  with  gross  rudeness, 
endeavored  to  embarrass  all  the  ‘dry’  wit- 
nesses and  to  twist  their  statements  out  of 
their  proper  setting,  acting  really  not  as  the 
impartial  chairman  of  the  committee,  but  as 
the  cross-examiner  for  the  liquor  interests, 
being  prompted  continually  in  his  question- 
ing by  their  official  representative.  In  the 
Pennsylvania  hearing,  while  the  prohibition 
question  had  only  the  remotest  bearing  upon 
the  committee,  he  emphasized  it  as  though  it 
were  a major  question  solely  for  the  purpose 
of  investigating  the  Anti-Saloon  League  of 
America  and  especially  for  the  cross-exami- 
nation of  its  National  Attorney,  Dr.  Wheeler. 
Never  have  I witnessed  a smaller,  more  con- 
temptible exhibition  of  vindictiveness  than 
the  treatment  given  Dr.  Wheeler  by  Senator 
Reed,  unless  it  were  a similar  exhibition  by 
this  same  man  toward  that  great  national 
leader,  President  Wilson,  in  the  days  when 
he  was  struggling  for  the  consummation  of 
the  great  ideals  of  his  administration.  I had 
formed  my  opinion  of  Senator  Reed  in  those 
days,  and  my  contempt  was  intensified,  as, 
sitting  side  by  side  with  my  friend.  Dr. 

[8] 


Wheeler,  I saw  his  inconsiderate,  heartless, 
cruel  treatment  of  a man  upon  whose  face  the 
seal  of  early  death  was  already  imprinted.  An 
effort  on  the  part  of  Mr.  Wheeler  and  his 
friends  to  have  a definite  hour  fixed  for  Dr. 
Wheeler’s  appearance  before  the  committee, 
because  of  the  state  of  his  health,  was  rudely, 
heartlessly  repulsed  with  the  off-hand  state- 
ment that  Dr.  Wheeler  was  no  better  than 
anyone  else,  and  so.  Dr.  Wheeler  was  com- 
pelled to  leave  his  bed  day  after  day  and  re- 
main in  the  committee  room  under  intense 
physical  strain  when  he  should  have  been  at 
home  or  in  the  hospital.  It  is  gratifying  to 
record  that  after  all  his  efforts  to  wear  out 
and  to  brow-beat.  Senator  Reed  more  than 
met  his  match  in  the  examination,  and  that 
he  won  no  victory  in  his  encounter  with  the 
able,  though  even  then  mortally  ill  prohibi- 
tion leader.  But  the  friends  of  Dr.  Wheeler 
who  were  with  him  daily  during  the  ordeal 
will  never  forget  the  heartlessness  and  vin- 
dictiveness of  Senator  James  A.  Reed,  in  his 
strenuous  effort  to  score  against  prohibition. 
It  is  important  that  our  people  know  the  rec- 
ords of  these  men. 

“At  this  same  time,  Senator  Reed,  under 
cover  of  this  same  Pennsylvania  primary  in- 
vestigation, with  only  a mere  technical  justi- 
fication for  such  procedure,  sent  men  to  Wes- 
terville to  investigate  the  books  and  records 
of  the  Anti-Saloon  League  of  America,  and 
brought  the  record  of  the  executive  commit- 
tee to  Washington,  copied  by  creatures  of  the 
Hearst  yellow  newspapers  in  the  hopes  that 
something  might  be  discovered  that  might  be 
discreditable  to  the  Christian  gentlemen  com- 
posing that  committee,  but  which,  I am  glad 
to  say,  fell  as  flat  as  his  efforts  to  discredit 
Dr.  Wheeler  at  the  public  hearing.  If  such 
[9] 


a man  should  secure  the  nomination  for  the 
presidency  of  the  United  States,  he  should  be 
opposed,  not  only  by  all  supporters  of  the 
prohibition  law,  but  by  all  lovers  of  decency 
and  fair  play,  regardless  of  party  lines. 

DISCUSSES  GOVERNOR  SMITH 
“But  the  man  who  has  done  more  to  thwart 
the  purpose  behind  the  passage  of  a national 
prohibition  law,  to  neutralize  its  possible  good 
effects  and  to  encourage  the  opponents  and 
the  violators  of  the  prohibition  law  is  Gov- 
ernor Alfred  E.  Smith,  of  New  York.  And 
practically  everything  which  may  be  said 
concerning  him  is  true  of  Governor  Ritchie, 
of  Maryland,  who  has  equal  hostile  inten- 
tions. but  less  territorial  ability,  for  Governor 
Ritchie  has  actively  and  successfully  opposed 
the  passage  of  any  state  law  enforcement 
code  by  the  Legislature  of  Maryland,  has  de- 
nounced the  prohibition  law  and  brought 
about  such  a reign  of  lawlessness  in  Mary- 
land that  last  week  Federal  Judge  Soper  con- 
demned in  seething  language  the  failure  of 
the  state  of  Maryland  to  cooperate  in  uphold- 
ing the  Constitution,  which,  be  it  remem- 
bered, Governor  Ritchie,  as  well  as  Governor 
Smith,  has  solemnly  sworn  to  support,  and 
has  ignored  his  oath.  Governor  Smith  has 
always  been  opposed  to  prohibition,  .state  and 
national.  As  a local  Tammany  politician,  his 
record  shows  that  he  has  been  a staunch,  ac- 
tive friend  of  the  liquor  traffic,  and  a regular 
consumer  of  intoxicants,  even  down  to  the 
present  day,  if  the  general  reports  are  cor- 
rect, and  the  opponent  of  restrictions  of  any 
kind  upon  the  operation  of  the  traffic,  openly, 
ardently  yearning  for  the  return  of  the  good 
old  days  of  the  brass  rail  and  the  foaming 
glass  (the  present  ardently  ‘wet’  spotlight 
mayor  of  New  York,  Honorable  Johnnie 
[ 10] 


Walker,  openly  boasted  in  a speech  ‘that  the 
people  of  New  York  would  be  able  to  have  a 
drink  at  home’  if  the  man  who  was  born  five 
blocks  away — Governor  Smith — were  made 
the  first  citizen  of  the  land).  The  Tammany 
organization,  of  which  since  the  death  of 
Charles  F.  Murphy,  Governor  Smith  is  the 
most  prominent  leader,  has  always  been  an 
open  friend  of  the  saloon,  and  at  the  present 
time  at  every  session  of  Congress  Tammany 
lines  up  its  Congressmen  from  New  York  to 
fight  in  every  possible  way  any  legislation 
designed  to  make  Federal  prohibition  more 
effective. 

ALL,  “WETS”  STAND  TOGETHER 
“When  Governor  Smith  was  defeated  in 
1920  and  the  New  York  Legislature  ratified  the 
Prohibition  Amendment  and  passed  a good 
prohibition  enforcement  act  — the  Mullan- 
Gage  Law — the  ex-Governor  and  his  follow- 
ers did  what  they  could  to  block  such  action 
but  failed.  But  when  by  the  united  support 
of  Tammany  and  the  great  foreign-born ‘wet’ 
(Republican  as  well  as  Democratic)  vote  of 
New  York  City,  Smith  was  re-elected  Gov- 
ernor in  1922,  1924  and  1926,  he  began  his 
work  to  nullify  the  National  Prohibition  Law 
as  speedily  and  as  quickly  as  possible.  He  had 
taken  the  oath  of  office  to  ‘support’  the  Con- 
stitution of  the  United  States,  but  he  evident- 
ly does  not  consider  that  this  oath  includes 
the  Eighteenth  Amendment,  for  he  gave  his 
support  to  the  effort  to  repeal  the  Mullan- 
Gage  Enforcement  Law,  and  notwithstand- 
ing all  appeals  to  veto  the  repeal  bill,  he 
signed  it,  and  purposely  left  the  great  city 
and  state  of  New  York  without  any  local  pro- 
hibition enforcement  law  or  officers,  knowing 
full  well  that  the  Federal  government  had 
neither  the  staff  nor  the  machinery  for  ef- 
[11  1 


fective  enforcement.  He  declared  at  that 
time  and  again  has  declared  within  the  past 
year  that  all  the  police  force  of  the  state  of 
New  York  are  under  oath  to  support  and  to 
enforce  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States, 
and  that  he  would  dismiss  from  office  those 
failing  to  do  their  duty.  But  up  to  this  pres- 
ent hour,  although  the  secular  press  of  New 
York  proclaims  almost  daily,  with  apparent 
delight,  that  the  law  is  not  enforced,  there  is 
no  public  record  that  Governor  Smith  has 
dismissed  anyone  from  office  for  failure  to 
support  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States 
by  the  non-enforcement  of  the  National  Pro- 
hibition Law.  In  short,  Governor  Smith  has 
not  only  not  endeavored  to  uphold  the  Eight- 
eenth Amendment  of  the  Constitution  as  he 
has  solemenly  taken  oath  to  do  for  three  suc- 
cessive terms,  but  on  the  contrary  he  has 
done  all  that  he  could  do  to  prevent  any  co- 
operation in  its  enforcement  by  the  police 
force  of  New  York  City  and  state.  More- 
over, he  has  ostentatiously  signed  bills  calling 
upon  Congress  to  take  action  on  the  prohibi- 
tion question  which  the  United  States  Su- 
preme Court  had  already  declared  to  be  un- 
constitutional. 

“This  positive  aggressive  action  and  rec- 
ord, and  present  attitude  of  Governor  Smith 
and  his  ‘wet’  followers  (Republicans  as  well 
as  Democrats)  in  the  city  and  state  of  New 
York,  have  greatly  affected  the  enforcement 
situation  throughout  the  country.  The  Fed- 
eral government  was  compelled  to  decide  to 
send  all  its  forces  and  to  spend  all  the  appro- 
priation to  secure  adequate  enforcement  in 
New  York  or  to  deliberately  decide  to  send 
only  such  proportion  of  its  force  as  was  nec- 
essary to  prevent  smuggling  into  the  United 
States  through  New  York  via  Rum  Row  or 
[ 12] 


the  Canadian  border,  to  prevent  the  diversion 
of  industrial  and  medicinal  alcohol  and  to 
prevent  the  smuggling  of  illicit  liquor  out  of 
New  York  into  adjacent  states,  and  having 
done  this  protective  work  for  the  other  states 
to  leave  New  York  ‘to  stew  in  its  own  juice’ 
of  liquor  lawlessness  and  crime.  Personally, 
I wish  that  the  President  of  the  United  States 
had  accepted  the  challenge  so  ostentatiously 
thrown  down  by  Governor  Smith,  and  called 
upon  Congress  to  furnish  the  men  and  the 
money  to  secure  as  effective  enforcement  of 
the  prohibition  law  in  New  York  state  as  in 
any  other  state  in  the  Union.  The  millions 
would  have  been  well  spent  in  vindication  of 
the  majesty  of  the  national  government.  But 
the  government  appears  to  have  decided  to 
protect  the  rest  of  the  country  from  New 
York’s  lawlessness,  and  to  let  New  York  suf- 
fer for  its  own  sins. 

DAMAGE  NOT  LIMITED 
“But  unfortunately  the  damage  resulting 
from  this  policy  cannot  be  confined  within 
the  boundary  of  New  York.  Despite  all  that 
can  be  said  and  known  as  to  Governor  Smith’s 
positive  purpose  to  nullify  the  enforcement 
of  the  prohibition  law  in  the  state  of  New 
York,  and  the  effectiveness  of  his  action  in 
this  regard;  despite  the  known  fact  of  the 
absolute  domination  by  Tammany  and  Gov- 
ernor Smith  of  the  police  force  of  New  York 
City;  despite  the  known  fact  that  75  per  cent 
of  the  population  of  that  city  is  foreign  born, 
or  immediately  descended;  despite  all  these 
things  the  prohibition  lawlessness  of  New 
York  is  heralded  not  only  all  over  the  United 
States,  but  over  the  whole  world  as  positive 
proof  that  prohibition  is  a failure,  that  the 
law  cannot  be  enforced,  and  that  there  must 
be  undisturbed  nullification  or  a modification 
[ 13] 


of  the  Federal  prohibition  law,  which  would 
leave  the  enforcement  of  that  law  to  the  sev- 
eral states. 

“This  poisonous  virus  has  been  spread  by 
the  ‘wet’  newspapers  of  New  York,  and  of 
other  cities,  Baltimore,  Chicago,  St.  Louis,  etc., 
which  have  determined  by  insidious  lawless 
propaganda  to  force  the  will  of  these  ‘wet’ 
largely  foreign  populated  cities  upon  the  en- 
tire nation.  These  papers  utter  no  word  in 
favor  of  law  enforcement.  They  appear,  in- 
deed, to  exult  in  the  lawlessness  of  their  citi- 
zens. Instead  of  denouncing  the  smugglers, 
hijackers,  bootleggers  and  sellers  of  poison- 
ous liquors  they  denounce  the  law,  then  they 
denounce  the  Federal  enforcement  officials 
as  incompetent  or  as  grafters,  the  dry  mem- 
bers of  Congress  as  hypocrites,  or  as  servile 
sycophants,  the  Anti-Saloon  League  officials 
as  tricksters,  fanatics,  or  wild,  harebrained 
enthusiasts,  and  the  great  church  bodies, 
which  endorse  prohibition  and  demand  pro- 
hibition enforcement,  as  impractical  misguid- 
ed idealists.  Had  these  newspapers  accepted 
the  law  in  good  faith  as  the  will  of  the  coun- 
try, expressed  by  the  regular  constitutional 
methods,  and  had  they  given  as  much  ability 
and  space  in  upholding  the  law  and  in  de- 
nunciation of  lawlessness,  as  they  have  given 
to  fighting  the  law,  their  own  communities 
would  be  far  more  law-abiding  today  and 
would  be  enjoying  the  benefits  which  have 
always  followed  the  observance  of  the  law. 
How  absurd  it  is  for  a great  New  York  daily 
to  write  editorial  after  editorial  against  na- 
tional prohibition,  based  upon  the  violation 
of  the  prohibition  law  in  New  York,  when 
they  know  that  this  lawlessness  has  resulted 
because  Governor  Smith  and  his  followers  de- 
liberately repealed  the  state  law  enforcement 
[ 14] 


code  to  prevent  the  enforcement  of  the  law. 
How  worse  than  absurd,  how  hypocritical  it 
is  for  those  same  dailies  to  declare  that  if 
Governor  Smith  should  be  elected  President 
of  the  United  States  and  took  the  oath  to  up- 
hold and  support  the  Constitution,  and  to  en- 
force the  laws,  he  would  keep  his  oath  of  of- 
fice and  would  enforce  the  Eighteenth  Amend- 
ment of  the  National  Prohibition  Law,  as  all 
other  laws,  when  his  record  is  plain  and  con- 
tinuous that,  although  he  has  three  times 
since  the  passage  of  the  National  Prohibition 
law',  taken  the  oath  to  support  the  Constitu- 
tion of  the  United  States,  yet  he  has  done 
more  than  any  other  one  man  in  the  United 
States  to  prevent  its  effective  enforcement. 
How  absurd,  how  suicidal  it  would  be  for  the 
prohibition  voters  of  the  country  to  agree  to 
the  election  of  such  a man  with  such  a record 
to  be  President  of  the  United  States,  a man 
who  personally  favors  the  use  of  intoxicants, 
whose  chief  friends  and  supporters  favor  the 
use  of  intoxicants,  and  are  bitterly  opposed  to 
the  prohibition  law,  to  which  is  to  be  added 
the  decisive  fact  that  this  man  with  this  rec- 
ord would  have  the  appointment  of  prohibi- 
tion enforcement  officials,  including  the  jus- 
tices of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States,  the  Circuit  and  Federal  judges,  the 
district  attorneys  and  electors  of  customs,  etc. 
Will  a man  that  has  done  all  in  his  power  to 
prevent  the  enforcement  of  the  prohibition 
law  in  his  own  state,  although  having  taken 
oath  three  successive  times  to  support  it,  sud- 
denly take  an  opposite  view  of  the  same  oath, 
should  he  be  elected  President  of  the  United 
States? 

“Especially  should  this  be  asked  in  view  of 
the  fact  that  this  man,  if  he  should  be  elected, 
would  be  elected  because  of  his  ‘wet’  record 
[15] 


alone,  would  be  counted  upon  to  secure  him 
the  votes  of  certain  wet  sections  of  the  coun- 
try. To  these  wet  sections  of  the  country  the 
appeal  for  votes  would  be  based  upon  Gov- 
ernor Smith’s  ‘wet’  nonenforcement  records  in 
New  York,  his  advocacy  of  state  determina- 
tion of  the  alcoholic  content  of  intoxicants, 
and  of  state  law  enforcement.  His  only  hope 
of  election  is  based  upon  the  success  of  this 
plan,  especially  with  ‘wet’  Republican  votes. 

“But  that  alone  would  not  secure  the  elec- 
tion of  Governor  Smith.  Joined  to  these  ‘wet’ 
votes  there  must  be  support  of  the  moral  and 
religious  forces  of  the  southern  states,  or 
Governor  Smith  cannot  be  elected,  and  this 
support  is  being  demanded  on  the  ground 
that  Governor  Smith  is  the  only  member  of 
the  Democratic  party  who  can  possibly  be 
elected,  even  while  it  is  necessarily  admitted 
that  he  can  be  elected  only  because  of  his  ‘wet’ 
nonenfoTcement  records,  will  win  enough 
votes  in  northern  and  eastern  states,  which, 
plus  the  dry  votes  of  the  South,  will  give  a 
majority. 

A PERILOUS  SITUATION 

“This  is  a perilous  situation,  w'hich  faces  us 
today  as  a body  of  Christian  men  and  women. 
It  is  proposed  that  conscientious  ‘dry’  voters 
will  consent  to  support  a man  for  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States,  who,  from  boy- 
hood, has  been  trained  by  Tammany,  has 
been  all  his  public  life  a representative  and 
is  now  the  leading  representative  of  that  usu- 
ally corrupt,  always  un-American  organiza- 
tion, which  fought  Tilden,  Cleveland,  Bryan 
and  Wilson;  a man  who  himself  uses  intoxi- 
cating liquor,  who  has  always  defended  the 
liquor  traffic  and  fought  all  forms  of  restric- 
tive and  prohibition  legislation,  who  has  done 
everything  possible  to  render  the  prohibition 
[16] 


law  ineffective  in  the  great  state  of  New 
York,  and  who,  if  at  the  head  of  the  Federal 
government,  would  not,  and  could  not,  be  ex- 
pected to  have  any  more  sympathy  with  pro- 
hibition or  its  enforcement  than  he  has  today. 

“The  Episcopal  address  of  1926  declares: 
‘The  industrial,  social,  educational,  moral  and 
religious  forces  of  the  nation,  which  over- 
threw the  legalized  liquor  traffic  and  secured 
national  prohibition,  must  unite  in  the  fight 
with  equal  vigor  and  persistence  against  the 
outlawed  criminal  traffic  and  the  would-be 
nullifiers  of  the  law.’ 

“If  we  agree  with  that  sentiment,  we  must 
declare  that  we  are  here  today  not  as  Demo- 
crats or  Republicans.  We  are  here  as  repre- 
sentatives of  a part  of  the  moral  and  relig- 
ious forces  of  this  ancient,  historic  common- 
wealth. We  have  labored  earnestly  and  fought 
persistently  for  these  long  years  to  secure  the 
enactment  of  the  greatest  piece  of  social  leg- 
islation ever  adopted  by  any  age  in  any  coun- 
try. The  time  has  come  to  give  solemn,  posi- 
tive warning  to  the  leaders  of  both  political 
parties  that  we  will  not  support  any  man. 
Democrat  or  Republican,  for  the  presidency 
of  the  United  States,  who  has  the  record  or 
who  holds  the  views  of  men  like  Senator 
Reed,  President  Nicholas  M.  Butler,  Gover- 
nor Smith  or  Governor  Ritchie;  aye,  more: 
that  we  pledge  ourselves  to  fight  vigorously 
and  unitedly  to  prevent  the  election  of  any 
such  men.  This  is  not  a matter  of  partisan 
politics.  This  is  a great  moral  issue,  which 
far  transcends  any  question  of  tariff,  finances, 
foreign  policy,  etc.  This  is  a question  that 
touches  the  everyday  life  of  all  our  people, 
our  homes,  our  schools,  our  business,  our 
churches;  therefore,  we  absolutely  refuse  to 
surrender  our  convictions  on  this  great  moral 
[17] 


question  to  aid  in  securing  a purely  political 
party  triumph  in  the  selection  of  a President, 
Democrat  or  Republican,  whose  election 
would  be  a menace  to  the  final  success  of  the 
beneficent,  salutary  prohibition  law. 

“Therefore,  we  most  earnestly  demand  not 
only  that  the  delegates  from  Virginia  to  both 
nominating  conventions,  use  their  influence 
to  defeat  the  nomination  of  men  of  the  type 
of  Butler,  Reed,  Smith  or  Ritchie,  but  that 
they  also  use  their  active  influence  to  secure 
the  nomination  of  men  whose  record  will  in- 
sure their  active  support  of  the  enforcement 
of  the  prohibition  laws.  We  positively  de- 
clare that  we  will  hold  our  political  leaders  of 
both  parties  responsible  for  the  proper  repre- 
sentation in  the  nominating  conventions  of 
the  views  of  the  moral,  religious  forces  of  our 
state.” 


PRINTED  IN  U.  S.  A. 

[ 18] 


